An everyday task which is carried out with great frequency in the telephone industry is that of connecting the individual wires in a first bundle of wires to the individual wires in a second bundle of wires. For example, communications cables comprise one or more bundles of wires, each bundle containing twenty-five pairs of wires. When a telephone cable line is installed, the cable is supplied in predetermined lengths and the end of each cable section in the line must be spliced to the end of the next section which means that all of the individual wires in the cable must be spliced to each other in individual connections. Splicing operations must also be carried out whenever new equipment, such as a switch system or a load coil system, is installed.
Originally, these splicing operations were carried out by wire twist splicing or by means of crimpable electrical connecting devices, one crimpable connecting device serving only to connect a single wire to a single wire in the two cable ends. More recently, conductor splicing operations have been carried out by modular multi-contact connectors as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,772,635, 3,708,779, 3,239,796, and 3,611,522 and modular connectors are now widely used in the telephone industry. In general, the preferred forms of modular connectors of the types described in the foregoing patents comprise a connector module which has contact terminals therein which are adapted to receive the wires which are to be connected, the terminals having wire-receiving slots at both of their ends. These connectors also have some provision for making tap connections to a cable, as by the use of a special tap module which is coupled with, or plugged onto the main connector module in which the through wires are connected.
The presently available modules for cable splicing or bundle splicing operations have, at best, limited pluggability; that is, it is possible to make a tap connection to a cable by plugging a tap module into a main module but the pluggability of the modules used is limited, at best, to such tap applications.
The instant invention is directed to splicing operations which have the advantage of unlimited pluggability or mateability with identical or similar connector modules. This feature of unlimited pluggability is particularly desirable in the telephone industry for several reasons; for example, when changes are made in a telephone cable, the preexisting connections can be broken by merely unplugging two mated connector parts and the new equipment can be installed by merely mating the unplugged parts with complementary or identical connector parts on cables extending from the new equipment. Under many circumstances, the changes which may be required to a telephone system can be effected without interrupting the service as by the use of jumper cables during changes to the system.